Turning Point
by quill.is.mightier
Summary: <html><head></head>Their beginning is less romance and more...clandestine. "It started a month ago with, as you may have guessed, an argument... She shuddered like I was her fix, and how twisted is it that that made my heart burst with happiness?" LJ</html>
1. Chapter 1

**A/N** A couple of firsts here. For me, I mean. Well, and for James and Lily (heh heh). First M-rated fic for me, and I'm a teensy bit embarrassed (by which I mean incredibly embarrassed), so take pity on me. Also, I've read a lot of fics where James and Lily have this tawdry affair filled with hatred and bitterness, and I always thought_ that's not how it would have happened!_, but then I thought, _why not, exactly?_ So I decided to experiment and see if I could make it authentic enough to convince myself. Not sure if I succeeded, but here it is!

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><p>I love her. Of course I love her. Well, I mean, I'm as close as a bloke can get to loving a girl without ever having really been given the chance to get to know her. But it's not my bloody fault she's off her rocker and can't stand me. Okay, it's a little bit my fault I suppose, but the bird takes it way too far. So sensitive.<p>

So yeah, when it starts, it's…confusing. To say the least. I mean, I'm straddling the love barrier here and she still sort of hates me, but we're… I'm getting ahead of myself. Maybe I should back up.

It started a month ago with, as you might have guessed, an argument.

"Bloody hell, Evans, you'd think I'd murdered your cat or something." It began pretty normally. I'd pinched her bum on a dare from Sirius—not that I didn't enjoy it—and she had rounded on me, wand awaving and eyes ablazing. Typical stuff. Our mates were hungry and went on to the Great Hall. They knew we'd catch up when we were done. It wasn't exactly their first rodeo, after all.

Huh? What's that? If it was all so routine, then why am I even bothering talking about it? It didn't stay routine; everything changed that night.

The turning point? She had given me the usual—immature, selfish, egotistical, intolerable. Not a great self-esteem booster, but I'm used to it. But for some reason beyond the bounds of normal understanding, she gave me a look I had only seen once: after our OWLs. Utter disgust. The kind you can't summon just for an irritating chap. The kind that makes your soul wither when it's pointed at you. I have no idea why she was so disturbed by my very presence that night, but I guess clear thinking isn't my strong suit when Evans isn't around; I didn't think to puzzle it out. Now, such a soul-withering look might make some people run off with their tails between their legs, but I've never had a keen survival instinct. I chose defensive anger with a side of sneering rather than earnest concern, confusion, or an apology. Hell, even a retreat would have been a better option.

"Lighten up, Evans. I know you tell yourself that no one but me asks you out because I scare all the blokes away, but it's not true. They all just think you're an insufferable prude who couldn't be fun or sexy even if she used all the potions and spells in the world." I didn't want to say it, honest. It all just sort of...came out. Like a hiccup. If a hiccup could be hexed to spit venom at the love of your life. And that's when she layered Utter Disgust with Absolute Loathing and Seething Anger.

For someone who had just put his foot in his mouth and his head up his arse, and who claims to be rather empty-headed and unobservant around a certain redhead, how are you sure how she was feeling? I hear you ask. Good sir, it's all in the face. Pretty much anybody can tell when Lily's mad. Her face gets tomato red and her eyes turn into infernos you can just barely make out through the slits of her eyelids. And the kicker—the true test of rage is whether or not she…

"For somebody who claims to be the man of my dreams, who professes his undying _adoration_ for me—you sure as hell don't seem to respect or even _like_ me. So how about you just leave me the fuck alone?"

…hisses her scathing words through her teeth. Yeah, she was one pissed Head Girl. Now, normally this would have reluctantly turned me on, but not this time.

What? Okay okay, it did turn me on, but her fiery temptress allure was overridden by one painful, sudden, apocalyptic realization. I was never, _ever_, going to be with Lily Evans.

The look in her eyes, the set of her shoulder, the words she had just spit at me—this wasn't some mating dance that schoolchildren play at anymore. Even I, the last holdout, couldn't see it like that, not after this. It was like Merlin had just Apparated in, hit me over the head with a dusty library tome and Apparated back out. Epiphany of the worst kind.

She was well and truly done with me. I had fucked it up too much to ever come back from. I couldn't breathe. My chest ached. My head felt full of hot blood and I couldn't think.

This is when I did the _first_ big stupid thing (keep a tally; you'll need it). I told the truth.

I told the truth, but in such a twisted way, it made no sense and she never could have guessed the real meaning beneath it all. I didn't like her. I loved her.

"Evans. Really. It took you long enough to cotton on. Of course I don't _like_ you." She had seemed shocked, if the sudden transformation of her eyes from tiny hatred-beam factories to round emeralds under furrowed brows was any indication. I recognized the tone of my own voice, with surprise—it was the same contempt with which I spoke to Snape. _This_ was what I had been reduced to. "If I had never met you, I could have had _everything_. But your sniveling rule-abiding, your arrogant refusal to just open your god-damned eyes, has ruined my life. How could I fucking _like_ you?" The heat in my head had spread to my whole body, like the worst embarrassment you've ever felt, increased a thousand-fold. It made my breathing shallow and loud and the edges of my vision seem a little gray.

I could tell her anger was back when she stepped forward like a threat, her hand hovering near where I imagined she kept her wand. The heat was unbearable. I'd ruined it? I had no chance? Fine. Then I had nothing to lose. I didn't have to back down to save my dignity, to stop myself going one step too far, doing something_ too_ stupid and ruining my chances. I'd already done that, hadn't I?

So I stepped forward, too, mirroring her threat almost simultaneously. Our eyes flicked back and forth between the others'; we were close, so close to each other. She breathed in deep like she was about to let me have it. I decided I'd rather not have it. So I did what seemed the only option at the time.

I grabbed the back of her neck—roughly, like how I'd swipe a Quaffle from the air—and jerked her body to mine so I could kiss her.

Yeah. That's the story of our first kiss. Not really romantic, but the girl made me crazy, okay! Makes me crazy, I guess I should say. At least it was good—you know, like it was a good kiss, not like it was a good decision for me to make. Although…well, we'll get to that later. It was a good kiss. Moan-inducing, even. She never guessed it was only my second attempt at swapping spit (you don't want to hear the story of my first kiss—it was a disastrous summer attempt to get over Evans).

So I kissed her. Her hands had come up between us, her palms flat against my chest. Her arms were tense, but she wasn't pushing me away. Her fingers were digging into my shirt, into my chest. The hand around her neck shifted so my fingers could grip her hair. That was when the first moan came. Or maybe it was more of a gasp. It was some sort of throaty noise that made me shove her against the door a foot away. Her head snapped back and I saw a glimpse of her pale neck that made me suck the pounding pulse point there.

Why do I keep saying "made me" like I had no choice? Because that's what it felt like. Like I had no control—I didn't decide to do anything that I did, I just _did_ it. Sometimes I worry about what would have happened if Lily had said no. Would my control have snapped back? Lily laughs and tells me of course it would have, but it's a scary thought, that she can suck up my self-control like a sponge to water.

But she didn't say no. She grabbed my neck, turning her head so I could reach more of her slender neck. Her left hand must have been fumbling with the door knob because I heard metallic clicking and then we were tumbling into a classroom—empty, thank Merlin. We crashed into a desk and my neck was starting to hurt leaning down to kiss her, so I grabbed the backs of her thighs and lifted her to the top of a surface I can now identify as one of those long counter-like tables. I wasn't really paying attention at the time.

She pulled my lips back to hers and I could feel her legs wrap around my hips. I swear to Merlin I almost came right there. My hands ran up the outsides of her thighs—I couldn't feel her skin (damn tights), but I remember thinking how perfectly shaped they were. Made for my hands to curve around them. Those hands found a home just on top of her hips as her teeth grazed the skin of my neck. My fingers gripped tight on the bones and muscles of the place where her hips and waist met when her core brushed against my crotch and spasms wracked my body. That was about when my hands realized there were more interesting places they could be. One snaked around to the small of her back to yank her closer to me while the other migrated upward.

The moans were great— the moans made me feel invincible. But the shudders. Oh, fuck, when my thumb grazed over the top of her bra through her blouse, and she shuddered like a junkie taking a hit…there went the last of my common sense and decency. She shuddered like I was her fix, and how twisted is it that that made my heart burst with happiness?

I bet you can tell where this is going. And I bet you're thinking I'm making all of this up. I would have thought that, too. I would have said, _Look, mate. Evans and Potter? Even if she could stand him, no way in hell would a prude like Evans bang a guy before they've even been on a single bloody date!_ Yeah, that's the funny thing about being repressed, obsessed, and everything that we were. When it rains, it pours. And, sweet Merlin yes, that _can_ be taken literally.

And here comes the part where I should have stopped. Where, if I could just get McGonagall to just fucking grant one of my _ten _bloody requests for a Time Turner, I would go. Well, there are a lot of things I would change. But remember that my epiphany (that Evans and I would never be together, go figure) was the turning point, where everything tipped?… well, this part was the point of no return.

Her hands had snaked under my shirt and after that first shudder, she whispered something and my shirt flew off. It was just like my Lily to use wandless magic to get me out of my shirt instead of, oh you know, _unbuttoning_ it like a normal person would have. I think I laughed because I remember how good it felt to have her lips crash against my open mouth and swallow the sounds. Her hands were all over me and the heat was unbearable. I was pushing against her lower back, scooting her as close to me as I could get her, feeling the heat radiate from her…my knees almost buckled at the thought.

There was some niggling feeling at the back of my head. I didn't know what it was, only that I really hated it because it made me feel as though I should draw back from Lily, stop what we were doing. It was insistent, though, distracting me, and I was on the verge of pulling away when her little hands were on my belt. She was undoing my belt buckle and the tips of her fingers were just barely grazing my crotch. I had thought breathing was hard before, but now I panted shallowly, and, looking back, I probably should have been pretty embarrassed with how eager and inexperienced I must have seemed. But I sure as hell wasn't thinking anything at the time, except maybe _Merlin, Lily's undoing my trousers, Lily Evans has her hands in the vicinity of my trousers, holy buggering shit are we about to shag?_

You know how when you're a wee little wizard, before you get your Hogwarts letter, your magic manifests when you're really emotional, like scared or angry? I accidentally turned my evil neighbor's pool water into an itching powder concoction after he had taunted me about my flying skills. Well, once you get a wand and learn to use it, things like that don't really happen anymore. I didn't even know it was possible, until just then. I also didn't know accidental wandless magic could be triggered by lust. Until just then.

My hands had moved from her bum and breasts to slide up her thighs, under her skirt, to skim the edge of her pants over her tights. I was touching Lily Evans' underthings (through her tights, but _still)_. I had to pull my lips from hers to breathe, I couldn't breathe Icouldn'tbreathe. My eyes opened automatically and met hers.

We were still, our hands motionless and our eyes unblinking. Even my breathing seemed to, finally, slow. Until her lids fluttered and my fingers flexed of their own accord and suddenly…where were her tights? And her pants? They were there just a second ago. Merlin, her pants disappeared and she looked just as surprised as I was, and I remembered thinking, I wish this stupid scrap of clothing would just go _away_ already, and then…it did. Voila. Who needs a wand when you have raging hormones and the hottest girl in school unzipping your trousers? Accidental wandless magic triggered by lust. Who knew?

I had thought about it, of course. Daydreamed, fantasized, woken shivering from wet dreams about what it would be like to kiss Lily, touch her, be inside her. But on those occasions when I wasn't in the grip of lust, I had always thought I would be nervous. That if it ever happened, I would be so hesitant, because, really, what did I know about pleasing a woman?

But I'm James Potter, and James Potter has always been good at playing it by ear, faking it until you make it, taking the bull by the horns, and I didn't feel unsure at all. Not with the feel of her smooth, cool skin under my burning hands.

My thumb moved down and over and oh, she was wet. I had never really imagined that before, but now I couldn't believe I wasn't always obsessed with it. The slick heat that says _she wants you, too_, that invites you in…I wondered how it tasted. When my thumb stroked up and down, she gasped and her back arched. She seemed surprised and her hands went behind her to steady herself on the table.

It was amazing. When her head righted and we locked gazes, I stroked again and she shuddered and arched and I knew, even if it was only for that instant, she was mine. Only I had ever (_could _ever, I told myself) made her feel like this. She had never looked at anyone else with an expression so lost and open and alive. I wasn't even disappointed her hands weren't near my crotch anymore, not if I could make her squirm like this. Each new reaction I elicited was the best, by far, the thing I was sure could never be topped. Moaning, shivering, squirming, arching, gasping… When she somehow managed to do all five at once, I pushed her down so she was lying on the table (you know, the counter-type one) and I was on top of her, but I still can't remember climbing onto the table myself.

We were kissing again and my fingers worked faster and she whimpered into my mouth and her hands were inside my briefs, _inside_ my briefs, _insidemybriefs!_ You wouldn't think it would feel _that _much better, a girl touching your cock instead of just yourself, but it does. It really, really does.

I found her weakness soon after that, nibbling her earlobe and letting my hot breath ghost over the sensitive skin. It became my weakness, too, when she gave the to-this-day unmatched, unsurpassable reaction.

"_James._"

Suddenly she and I were working in tandem to push my trousers and briefs down my pants. Her shirt that I only then realized was still on—how could I have let that stay on so long?—I ripped off. I didn't stop to look at her until we had wriggled her skirt up over her head and I had finagled open the fastenings of her bra.

Then, I looked. I nudged her down until she was lying again and closed my eyes for a moment, like I could imprint the image in my brain. She seemed so small when my big hand lightly skimmed over her torso, collarbone, hips. I could see her blush from the corner of my eye, but when I slid two fingers inside of her, her eyes fluttered open and shut and her back arched up and her mouth opened in a way that I could tell meant she wasn't breathing.

I stole her breath away.

Soon, I had found a rhythm that made her gasps and moans and heavy breathing escalate, until I had to cast a _Muffliato_ spell under my breath (and without my wand (who needs to work on their wandless magic _now_, Flitwick?)). That was about the only common sense thing I was capable of just then.

It had started to hurt, my erection that was still pulsing. I had never experienced this painful need for release before and then, as if she could hear my thoughts, her hand grasped it and slid, up and down. It suddenly got difficult to stay propped up on one elbow, hovering over and just to the side of her. I swung my knee over her thighs so I was straddling her and had better access to her mouth.

How long had we been in there? I'm not sure, but it seemed like years, like longer than any man has ever waited for release in the entire history of mankind. So when her legs tucked up, escaping the prison my thighs had made for them, and latched around my back so that my hips fell forward and grazed against her core, I almost wept at the sensation. It helped the ache, but also seemed to make it worse somehow.

She whimpered and said my name again. I found the entrance by instinct, and might have hesitated, if she hadn't squeezed her legs around me and lifted her hips to push me inside. She clenched, eyes screwed shut in pain, but released a ragged breath after a moment and kissed me senseless until I forgot to worry and slid out and back in.

I would describe the feeling, but I really wouldn't know how. Warm, mostly. And not just down there, but everywhere, like napping by a fire and waking up feeling toasty warm down to your bones. My head found the perfect spot in the crook of neck and we rocked and moaned and sweat our way to a sweet climax.

I don't think I technically blacked out or anything, but there was definitely a feeling of coming out of a comatose state when I lifted my head a few minutes later. My face and chest felt flushed and I realized I was probably crushing her a bit under my weight, so I struggled up onto my elbows—my arms felt like noodles—and looked down at her, a smile on my face.

She wouldn't meet my eyes.

That's, I would say, about when reality slapped me upside the face with a rotten herring. I rolled off of her to collect myself and figure out what the hell I should say and she sat up and started gathering her things.

"Lily, wait. I love you. I've loved you since…well, forever, it seems like. I want to be with you so much, but this isn't how I wanted it to happen. But, if you're willing to give me a chance, I'd love nothing more than to prove to you that this wasn't a mistake."

That's what I should have said. What I actually said: "Uh, Lily?"

Brilliant. Smooth. I still wanna slam my head against a wall when I think about that bit of genius. She acted like she hadn't heard me. She summoned her buttons to her and repaired her shirt with two whispered spells, tugging her hair out from her collar.

I reached a hand out, to stop her, to touch her, to do _something_, to make this stop. Why was this happening? It didn't have to be like this. She was leaving and I knew, I just knew, that everything would turn to shit if she left like this. But she wasn't facing me, couldn't see my hand, and I couldn't reach her from my position. I rose to walk over to her, then became very aware of how naked I was. And how clothed she was. I yanked on my trousers and ignored my burning cheeks (the ones on my face. Come on guys, get your minds out of the gutter).

I should have stayed naked. I think my hurried dressing was some sort of signal to her. Like the sound of a zipper means "we are now at the 'thank you, ma'am' stage of 'Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am'." Her back was still to me, but her head turned to the side just enough that I could see her profile, but I was probably only barely visible in her periphery.

"This never happened. We won't tell a soul. We'll do our Head duties, and that is all." I almost asked what she was going to threaten me with—the old Lily would never have trusted me to keep a secret without a threat looming over me—but was smart enough not to.

"Lily, wait—" I wasn't sure what I was going to say, but I would have come up with something if she hadn't cut me off.

"Goodbye, Potter." She walked out the door with a purposeful stride.

What just happened?

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><p>You might be thinking, "Sheesh, that was a painful end to the story, I'm so glad it's over." Don't get too comfy, though. The worst has yet to come. Now you know the story of our first time. Even less romantic than when you thought it was just the story of our first kiss, right? No use telling me. I already know.<p>

I'd like to stay I smartened up and marched up to her dormitory to tell her we couldn't leave it like that, to tell her I love her and want to be with her. Hell, I'd like to say I was smart enough to realize how depressed I should be just then. But I wasn't. I walked back to the dorm in a daze, my shirt (which I had found in a corner of the room) rumpled and badly buttoned. I never remembered to put my briefs back on. Oh well, some poor soul would one day find a discarded pair of used pants in an abandoned classroom. Then I realized that Lily wasn't wearing any underwear, either. She couldn't be. We weren't even sure where they hell they'd gone to after that bit of accidental magic.

We were both walking the castle corridors, going commando. I would have smirked at the thought if I hadn't been so busy being so damn confused. I made it to my dorm in a daze, only surfacing to the real world to see if Lily was in the common room. She wasn't. Of course not.

The Marauders were in the dorm, though. When I walked in, I saw them sitting on Remus's bed, the Marauders' Map spread in the middle. When they spotted me, they jumped up and whooped and hollered and slapped me on the back. They had seen us on the map, guessed what had happened.

They didn't guess all of it. I drifted over to his bed and flopped down, staring at the ceiling. After a moment of silence, Sirius shuffled over.

"Hey, mate." He cleared his throat. "What happened?"

"She left. Told me not to tell anyone. That it never happened." It didn't sound like my voice, but when I said it aloud it began to sink in.

What the fuck had I done?

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><p><strong>AN** The origin of the phrase 'going commando' is sometimes traced back to college campuses in 1974, so it is construably (I made that word up) not an anachronism. Hah. So I decided to make this a chaptered fic otherwise it would have been the world's longest oneshot and I promise to try REALLY hard to update and it should only be 3 or 4 chapters anyway. Criticism is accepted but try not to be too harsh- I'm new to writing smut. Also, I'm a girl, so it's odd that I chose to start off from a guy's perspective. Hm. **Please review, otherwise I'll give up and never update.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N** I edited the first chapter, nothing major, just some adjustments and small additions that hopefully make it flow more smoothly. Sorry, I'm incapable of editing right after writing, and I am always compelled to publish fics right after writing them. So go back and reread the first chappie if you feel so inclined. Thanks for all my reviews, favorites, and alerts!

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><p>So after a long and sleepless night filled alternately with painful regret and shameful excitement (both of which left me, pathetically, almost teary), I was staring up at the ceiling, the edges of my vision swallowed by the red of my four poster's hangings.<p>

I finally knew what it was like to touch Lily. I knew _way_ more than I had ever thought to even wonder about (_she didn't have any freckles on her thighs; why hadn't I ever thought about that?)_, and I couldn't revel in it like I wanted to, like I should be able to, after six buggering years of chasing her. But I couldn't stop it replaying. Couldn't stop the flush in my cheeks as flashes came back to me, my hand skimming her thigh, her eyes fluttering shut. Her hands pulling on her skirt. Then revulsion would fill me, that I could feel like…like that, when Lily hated me. When I'd fucked her on a desk in an empty classroom like some slag and now she probably hated herself (and me, but that's a given)… and the way she'd looked. Shit. The way she'd looked. As if she'd absolutely die if she'd had to spend one single more second in my company. As if I was every horrible thing she'd always said I was that I had never really believed. Until now.

Light ripped into my eyeballs when roughly thirteen stone of idiot yanked back my hangings and leaned over me like a homicidal maniac.

"Morning, slut!" he had barked, laughing until I kangaroo-kicked him in the chest and he fell back onto his bed, cracking one edge of the frame and rubbing his ribs.

"Merlin's balls, Prongs. Don't have to be such a pussy about the whole thing." Sirius grabbed his wand off his bedside table and repaired the cracked bed frame—it was hardly the first time we had broken it…no, not like that! Definitely not like that. The Marauders are one hundred percent man. Men, I mean. There are multiple of us. Plural. Not plural like orgy. That would never happen. Well, sometimes Remus and Sirius look a little…I DIDN'T MEAN IT LIKE THAT, ALRIGHT?—before casting a little Stinging Hex at me.

I had cursed and was about to retaliate when Moony woke up and sleepily cast a repelling spell on both of us, shoving the both of us back to our beds—it was hardly the first time we had needed it…

Now that I think about it, we need an awful lot of magical intervention in our lives. Maybe we should start exercising more self-control. Or start doing everything the Muggle way, like that one horrible detention fifth year, where we weren't allowed to do magic for two weeks—and by "allowed", I mean "able"; McGonagall got Flitwick to cast some wicked charm on us where we couldn't do any magic because she knew, of course, that stern words would not prevent us from getting up to some magical mischief—and everything was so hard that we actually learned a lesson. Until summer holiday came along and we promptly forgot said lesson, that is. Maybe if we tried hoofing it again, we'd have fewer of these little situations. And then, probably the charm would have stopped accidental magic, as well, and then Lily wouldn't have lost her panties, in which case I might not have been in this horrible mess at all. I would have slid my hand up, encountered knickers, and thought, "Oh my word! Lily's knickers! What on Earth am I doing touching Lily's knickers? We had better stop; this is highly inappropriate, and will likely lead to further disaster in the Evans area", thus ending the unfortunate situation, with Lily thinking me a gentleman and slowly beginning to love me. And me having blue balls.

But blue balls are a small price to pay for happily ever after with the girl of your dreams. Which would entail unlimited sex with the girl of your dreams. Way better than a one-night stand with the girl of your dreams, after which said girl appears to hate you more than she did beforehand.

One-night stand. Buggering bloody Merlin. I had had a one-night stand with Evans. Of all the things NOT to do to convince her I'm a decent human being and not at all an arrogant toe-rag who's only interested in her for a quick shag and the chase and all that rot…I'm pretty sure a one-night stand was the least okay thing to do. Probably it was slightly more acceptable than kidnap and assault.

Anyway, back to the story already so I can get you caught up and whine to you about my current situation, instead of whining like a bleeding bird.

Much like the virginity-losing-fiasco-that-was-also-kind-of-amazing-if-I-didn't-think-about-the-after-part, I'm not really sure how the next part happened. It went something like this:

_I run down the hall after a painful Charms lesson two days after the aforementioned fiasco, chasing a fleeing Lily._

Me: Lily! Stop fleeing!

Lily: I'm not fleeing; I'm exiting your presence at a controlled pace, because I have no reason to flee from you because nothing happened between us that would anger and/or humiliate me.

Me: Just let me explain how I feel wonderful, marvelous things about you, and I'm sorry about what happened—you deserve more than that and I wish more than anything it hadn't happened that way, but you should know that I love you, and I'll do anything to make it up to you, if you'll just give me a chance.

Lily: I hate you and you're a big meanie-face!

Me: Lily, be reasonable!

Lily: _(screaming like a baboon-banshee hybrid)_ I hope it didn't take you too long to master that little panty-evaporating trick, Potter. After I'm done with you, you'll never have the need for it.

Me: _(I'm pretty sure I just whimpered)_

Lily: I can't stand the sight of your face, it makes me want to—

Screw me to the wall, apparently. Because in mid-sentence during that conversation (which happened exactly the way I've transcribed it, verbatim, I swear!), Lily decides it'd be a good idea to start snogging me. Which led to sex. Which led to the exact same look—you know, the one that said she had defiled herself by letting me merely touch her, much less ram my c—well, you get the picture. No need to get into the nitty gritty again.

At least one thing improved. The other Marauders never found out about the other times.

That's right. I said "times". Plural.

You see, apparently the one shred of common sense that I had (that shred being not to let my dumbass friends know something that would absolutely humiliate Lily, thereby proving to her that she could in no way trust me) was also probably my downfall. Remus probably could have talked some sense into me. Shown me that we had to quit. That it was only hurting us both.

But I didn't tell. Not just for Lily. For me. I knew what Remus would say, and I knew it was true. But I didn't want to hear it; I thought I could handle it myself, fix it. At least, that's what I thought at first. Eventually, after a few weeks, after a dozen rendezvous, and after more confusion than I can even begin to describe, I stopped trying to handle it, I suppose.

It was an addiction, and I knew it was wrong. At least, I knew that the way we were doing it was wrong

But this was Lily Evans, and, at the time, an addiction to being with her seemed better than an addiction to following her around like a lost puppy, hopeless. Looking back… I'm not so sure. I'm not very sure about anything anymore.

Blast it buggering all! I keep trying to just tell you the story so that you'll know exactly the pickle that I'm currently in, but I keep jumping ahead and getting caught up in my own pathetic thoughts.

Pity, party for one, please.

I'm not sure how many times it was. It seems like countless, but only a few months passed. It can't have been _that_ many between the start of term and Christmas hols. I mean, with my stamina and incredibly short recharge time, it could have been infinite times, but I had to work in classes and Quidditch somewhere, alright?

The second time, after that aforementioned accurately relayed conversation, was up against a wall. A little less magical, a little less tender feeling, but no less amazing. I think I blacked out a little at the end. Or maybe it was red, from all that hair my face was buried in. But then, I sighed out happily and her legs, which had been locked around my waist, slid down to the floor and she scooted away from me.

The Lily I knew would have pushed me away, slapped me, when she wanted me out of her personal space. This Lily would do anything not to touch me, except when, for God knows what reason, she decided to jump my bones.

And now that I thought about it, I was sort of mad. She had jumped _my_ bones. Why does she get to look all hurt and angry? I mean, I'm a bloke! A bloke who famously fancies her! How much self-control am I supposed to have?

Then I was just plain steamed. Oh, she was going to shag me and bag me? (Alright, I made that phrase up, but "love 'em and leave 'em" seemed a little too euphemistic for the situation.) She was going to dangle herself in front of me and then crush all my hopes?

Well, fine. That witch was going to pay. Hard. Really hard. Just like certain parts of me were, thinking about Lily. Fuck. I was pathetic.

I had stomped my way up to Gryffindor Tower, trying really hard to stay mad, to grab the map and find where she had stormed off to. I waved off the other Marauders' shouts of greeting and ran up the boys' stairs. I slammed the door shut behind me, really trying to work myself into a state so I could properly yell at Evans.

Who in Merlin's name did she think she was? Just sauntering around like nothing had happened, yelling at me one minute, screwing my brains out the next. The nerve of her, having her red hair that sways when she walks and bounces when she puts in ponytails, and sticks to her temple when she's in the throes of an orga—shit.

All the fight went out of me and I flopped facedown on my bed. I caught a whiff of her scent on my clothed and screwed my eyes shut as hard as I could, as if that could have stopped the aroma from invading my nostrils, or her image from conjuring in my mind.

Depression sounded a lot easier than anger right then.

What can I say? People around the castle knew me as a lazy genius, and I guess they were right about the first part, at least.

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><p>I skipped my classes the next day, and told Sirius to tell McGonagall that I had a nasty case of vampirism. I got a detention, but Sirius says the fake bite mark he charmed on Marlene's neck got a good laugh from the class, so it was a win in my book.<p>

This gave me an extra eight hours, giver or take, to avoid Lily, at which point I had Quidditch practice, after which I would let all the other team members tromp through the portrait hole before me, so she would have time to skedaddle on up to her dorm if she happened to be in the common room. Perfect. Fool proof. Right?

Wrong.

_Somebody_ didn't have the common sense to avoid someone they had just accidentally slept with for the second time. _Somebody_ didn't have the decency to help a bloke avoid a girl when it was _obvious_ that said bloke was trying to avoid said girl. _Somebody_ looked ravishing in her lounge shorts and tank top.

_Somebody_ had me whipped, and she didn't even know it.

I was freshly showered, but already getting sore from a grueling practice that still hadn't been able to take my mind off Lily. Sirius' complaining had provided an outlet for me, however, as I decided to help him practice his Beating skills by beaming Quaffles at his head. My hair had still been a little damp when I trudged through the portrait hole after the rest of the team, but the chill from the Scottish October air vanished when our eyes met across the room.

An embarrassing red stain creeped from my ears to nose and maybe even up to my hairline and down to my collar. She looked away, but it was too late for me. My toe caught on the edge of a rug and down I went to become better acquainted with the ground. The house elves really do a nice job keeping the castle clean. I can personally attest to the nasty, horrible things teenagers did to the common room. Shooting off fireworks, spilling Firewhiskey, playing Exploding Snap, opening fake holiday crackers that exploded fake bogeys… Well, I guess the Marauders and I might be responsible for the _slight_ majority of the messes in the common room, but hey—it just gave cushy Hogwarts jobs to more house elves, right?

I thought about trying to turn it into a somersault, but too much time had passed, and I was pretty sure my spine would snap in half if I tried. It was a rough practice. So, I just hopped up and took a bow to entertain my giggling audience, before making my way at a brisk walk to the boys' staircase.

Damn Lily and her bleeding damn…_sitting_. Just sitting there! Like _sitting_ there was just…okay! It was not okay. Most certainly was it not okay. Okay?

"Prongs? Sirius has been for a total of sixty seconds and has already managed to curse your name approximately one million times. Did you finally start dipping disruptive team members in lava?"

Sirius grumbled from his bed, where he was curled into a fetal position.

"I just made them run some laps."

"And fly some laps. And run some laps holding Bludgers. And fly some laps tossing Bludgers in the air. And do every drill known to wizardkind. And run some laps. And throw bloody Quaffles at my head." Sirius' head was buried in a pillow, but pillowspeak is a language well known to adolescents, so Remus laughed and James said, "It's not my fault you've gone soft. No wonder you're not scoring so much lately. That six pack has turned a little mushy."

Sirius' head slowly lifted off the pillow and rotated to fix James with a vicious glare. "Are you sure you wanna go there, mate?"

"Go where?" I asked, trying my innocent face out.

"Oh, you know where. To the _Throwdown_." The Throwdown was a roughly tri-monthly competition of looks, skill, and general magnificence between me and Sirius. There was never an _official_ winner, as the only judges ever present were Remus, who refused to participate, and Peter, who always looked ready to pee his pants out of anxiety at having to choose between his two favorite people, but that didn't stop us from having their pissing contests. Besides, it went unsaid that I was always the unofficial winner.

"I'd love to go, but I don't think you'll be able to make it on account of your ab seems a little tired." Sirius' eyes narrowed and he rolled over so he could glare properly.

"Well, I'd think you'd already gone and come back by broom, judging by your ridiculous hair. Oh, don't try to fix it," he said when James' hand flew to his hair, "you might make my _ab_ hurt from laughing."

"I think you mean barking. I mean, I knew I was always the better at Transfiguration, but I'd think you could at least fully transform. Guess a few things are being left behind—vocal cords, soft belly, fleas…"

"Huh. Well, Prongs, I wish I could say the same for you, but I don't think your antler's going to be seeing the light of day after the last Evans disaster." Sirius was smirking, and if it had been anyone else, I would have punched him in the face, or shot a hex at them, but Sirius was Sirius and I settled for a punch to his gut.

"_Oof_."

"Really, man. Gotta work on those abs." I was the one smirking then. Sirius seemed to debate returning the favor, but decided to steal some of the candy from my stash instead.

"Hogsmeade this weekend?" I looked at my stash. Dangerously low.

"Definitely."

Maybe I could get some Firewhiskey and drown my sorrows. Maybe then I could work up the courage—anger? Moxie? Recklessness—to give her a piece of my mind.

Probably you can guess that that's not exactly how the weekend went...

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><p><strong>AN** I am really going to try to update soon. Sorry it's sort of an uneventful chapter. Went for the quicker update. If you favorited or alerted, don't be shy—write a review, too!


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N** Sorry sorry sorry it took so long to update! Thank Lemons for Limes, the LJ smut tumblr for recing this fic and thereby getting me a bunch of favorites, thereby inspiring me to update! So I had thought I wouldn't do any more smut, cuz I was all bashful after the first chapter, but then I was like, wait, smut's AWESOME, so there will probably be more. Including a little in this chaper. You're welsome.

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><p>The situation: A few weeks before Christmas hols, Seventh Year. By this time, Lily and I had had sex twice, and I had become so confused by her that it spread to my life at large, resulting in embarrassing scenes such as A) reciting the recipe for the Draught of Living Death in response, apparently, to Flitwick's request that I stop snoring in class, and B) getting caught by Lily for staring at Lily, which seemed to make Lily mad, which made me ask Lily's friend Marlene to Hogsmeade, so that Lily wouldn't think I had been staring at her, which made a) Marlene slap me and b) Lily storm off.<p>

Does she get to be jealous when she won't even return my owls? …Yes, alright, I owled her. That's how cowardly I am.

_Lily,_

_I know things have been…unusual, but I think we need to talk. As soon as possible. And probably we should keep at least five, or maybe ten, feet of distance between us at all times to prevent things from happening again. I think we can both agree that that would be a bad idea. Please, just tell me a time and a place and I'll be there, approximately five to ten feet away from you. Although, maybe five feet is better so that there will be no shouting, which can often lead to other people overhearing conversations, which would also be bad._

_James_

I had wanted to write _Love, James_, but that was stupid. Then I tried _Sincerely, James_ and wanted to cringe. Same for _Regards_ and _Cheers_. Almost went with, _Until then_, but decided at the last minute it sounded desperate.

But does she respond? No. No way can _somebody_ throw a bloke a bone and _explain_ her insane behavior, because then James Potter's life would be just _WAY_ TOO BLEEDING EASY! Scheduled a Quidditch practice for the Friday before the Hogsmeade trip, and everyone whined so much that I had no choice but to keep them an hour late.

I skipped rounds that night because she had the same shift and I was worried we might accidentally cross paths in that gray area on the third floor that nobody knows whose job it is to patrol, and if I _was_ on patrol I would probably have purposefully lingered there hoping to see her because I'm a glutton for punishment. So I avoided the problem entirely.

But at eleven o'clock I had a sudden and inexplicable hankering for treacle tart and Butterbeer. Only one place for that in the castle: the kitchens.

I didn't grab my cloak because, after all, I _am_ the Head Boy, and I _was_ supposed to be on rounds, and I slowly ambled down the changing steps of Hogwarts to the still life portrait to tickle the pear. The elves were more than gracious, and I left completely satisfied. I walked slowly up to the tower, just to see if any students were out of bed past curfew, but ran across no one. Absolutely no one at all.

I crawled into my bed and shut the hangings, totally, one hundred percent satisfied and ready for Hogsmeade.

Why did everything in this shite Gryffindor Tower have to be so bloody _red?_

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><p>We slept in. We woke slowly, eventually wandering into the Common Room where we got up to our usual charming boyish antics (Sirius said he was prettier than I was, so I had to tackle him, of course, which led to Peter being Peter and Remus being Remus, separating us with that bloody effective charm of his (after he took two bets on the outcome—I saw it, I'm positive!)). We ambled down to the Great Hall to enjoy breakfast, most of the third years and up having already bolted down their meals to find their way into the village, so the tables were sparsely populated. Just the younger students and other jaded uppers who didn't quite care so much anymore.<p>

Guess who was among their ranks?

Did you guess Lily? I bet you guessed Lily. And you know what? You'd be right! Because if someone unusual or interesting or really, _anything_ happens in my life that is at all worthy of mention, you could pretty much be guaran-damn-teed it's about Lily Evans.

Sometimes I hate her. I'm not even kidding. I know it sounds like I'm kidding, but I'm not. Do you know what it feels like to have your identity ripped from you as a teenager and taken up by someone else? Someone who doesn't even care? Someone who hates you? I never even had a chance. I was whipped from the time…well, I'm not sure when it happened. She was always special, you know? Always something about the Evans girl. And one day, maybe third year, it wasn't just something. It was love. Drop down on your knees and weep, thank Merlin you're alive, even the tiniest mites on a Hippogriff are beautiful because they exist in the world where _she_ is, which makes everything beautiful love. Which, of course, eventually became, drop down on your knees and weep, beg Merlin he'll spare you the torment of eternal rejection and pain of the most wonderful girl, the _only_ girl, not giving the time of day I'm sure if she just knew the _real_ me she wouldn't feel this way oh Merlin what do I do how do I make it _stop_ love.

I don't know who James Potter would be if there were no Lily Evans in the equation. That's fucked up beyond belief, in case you weren't aware.

My jaw started to ache and I realized that it was clenched. Hard. And probably had been since we entered the Great Hall five minutes ago. I made an effort to relax it, because I was pretty sure I clenched my jaw all the time, and it was starting to make weird clicking noises when I ate, and it ached at random times, so I should probably relax and stop with the clenching.

But a minute later, as I went to shovel bacon in my mouth, I had to pry my bottom teeth from the top row, where they had been hell-bent on battling to the death. My will power seemed utterly useless in helping fix any problems in my life.

Now, I didn't exactly have what you might call a "plan of action" at this point, but I guess by default I was ignoring Evans, turnabout being fair play and all that, you know. So there I was, ignoring Evans because I didn't know what else to do. My mates were all sort of eyeing each other every minute or so, but didn't say anything. My recent reticence on the Evans topic was very unlike me, _especially_ after such a big development as losing my virginity (Merlin, I cringe every time I think that word; makes me feel like girl in pigtails) with Evans. But after their initial teasing and commiseration, they had decided to give me space, I suppose.

Plus, I imagine they were a bit relieved to not hear me whingeing about her for once. Berks.

So, I was fully entrenched, ready for the long haul of out-ignoring Lily. I had bacon, three best mates, and a day of Hogsmeade ahead of me. I was good to go.

As I was unhinging my jaws to stuff some more French toast in the munching cave, Lily stood up and, after waving goodbye to her friends, walked right past me and out of the Great Hall.

"Go on without me," I shot at Sirius, Remus, and Peter (they groaned, the berks) as I bolted off the bench and after Lily. Well, what did you expect? I said I had bacon as willpower food. Everyone knows bacon is notoriously horrible for willpower. You need bananas and shit for that.

She was practically running up the steps by the time I burst through the doors, as if she had known I would follow. I tired very hard to ignore how magnificent her calves looked hopping up all the steps. So smooth and shapely…

"Lily! Bloody stop, would you?"

"Leave me _alone_, Potter!"

"I'm not leaving! We can have this conversation shouting across a flight of steps or you could slow down and we could have it in private!" I was closing on her anyway; I was as fit as I had ever been in my life as a result of grueling practices as a result of excess stress needing an outlet as a result of Lily ignoring me as a result of accidentally corking Lily, so running up steps wasn't exactly exhausting.

Do you see why I always cock everything up? My brain does not think things in a way that makes any sense. It makes these great big circle-chains of questionable logic so that by the end I can't tell how I got there, which, if I could, I would be able to say, "Look! Right here! Premise 3 is clearly untrue and therefore the resultant conclusions are unsound!" Instead, I say, "Sounds about right to me!" and do idiotic things like charm a dozen roses emerald green for her eyes and ignore the fact that they actually look like sort of like slime-covered roses and give them to her anyway.

Incidentally, it also makes my thoughts very long and complicated run-on sentences.

So at the top of the second flight of stairs, I caught her right wrist with my left arm. I swear I hardly pulled her at all, so I was stunned when she, without missing a beat, used the movement to spin around and slap me across the face. It hurt, but I've hard worse, so I resisted the urge to reach a hand up and gingerly touch it. It wouldn't help, anyway.

Her hand was covering her open mouth then, and her eyes looked surprisingly wet. Like at any minute she was going to…

Bollocks.

"Lily, don't cry… It's okay, it didn't even hurt much! No no no sorry, I mean, it did hurt! You've got a hell of an arm for a girl, I just meant that it'll be fine and I deserve it anyway, so don't cry. _Please, please_ don't cry!" I was stricken. I'll admit it; James Potter does not know how to comfort crying women. Sirius does, because it's apparently a great ploy to get a bird. But I don't. Especially not Lily. Everything you try to say just seems to make it worse. So I decided to hug her. That _was_ standard protocol, right? Hug away the tears?

She was at the landing but I was a step below her, so when I cautiously wrapped my arms around her waist, bringing her closer, her head fell on my shoulder.

I tried not to think it, I swear I did. I devoted a lot of energy to not thinking it, because I knew that if I thought it, I would be at least twenty per cent less manly, and that was not acceptable. But w by now we all know what my will power is worth, and I thought it. _A perfect fit._ The way her head tucked into my shoulders when I was just a few inches shorter.

Still a little shocked she hadn't slapped me again, I hesitantly brought one hand up to stroke her back, reassuring-like. She cried harder into my shirt. Shit!

"Lily? I'm sorry," I whisper. "I'm not sure what I did, well, this time, at least, but I'm sorry." She pushed off me, almost making me lose my balance on the stairs. Her eyes were wide, lashes made darker and clumped together by tears, which still tracked down her face. Don't ask me to tell you how she felt or what she was thinking, because I'm positive that any guess I made would be whole Quidditch pitches away from the truth. But I did know what _I_ was thinking, and I said it.

"You're beautiful." Her face seemed to crumple, and then we were kissing. It was wet, and big, and different from the other times. I thought about pushing her away, preventing this travesty from repeating itself (preventing the sucker punch to my gut when she walked away again), but those eyes. Big and vulnerable? Scared? Angry? Hurt? Confused? Then…like everything was collapsing, falling apart.

Which, if I had had even half my wits at the time, which I never seem to around Evans, I might have realized what that expression could have meant. Because everything _is_ collapsing. The wizarding world _is _falling apart, going to war, and though I have plans for after Hogwarts (plans to fight it, to change it), _she's_ the one who has the most cause to crumple and cry in stairwells about it.

But I didn't have even half of my wits at the time, and I'm bloody self-centered and caught up in wondering if it's about me or if it's maybe just her time of the month (it's not, as I was about to discover). Then her tongue brushed mine and brain function was a thing of the past. I curved my hands around her face, cupping her jaw and brushing her soft cheeks with my thumbs, savoring this kiss like I hadn't the others, pretending the feeling behind it was love for me.

I brought one hand down to the small of her back to lead her to an empty classroom a little ways down the hall, my thumb coming away, wet from her tears.

My poor, poor Lily. What had I done to her? My chest tightened and I felt the need to show her beautiful, how precious she was and how she should never let anything or any_one_ in this world bring her down.

I backed us slowly toward the classroom, our feet getting tangled until finally I just hoisted her up by the waist and she wrapped her legs around me, mouth immediately coming back to mine.

How _no one_ walked by in that time is a mystery to me. Even on a Hogsmeade day, you could rarely walk through this part of the castle without a few students or professors trickling past. But I guess the universe wanted to keep its showing of the Evans/Potter Twisted Fest private for a while, so we weren't discovered.

Inside the room there were counters like from our first time. I carefully set her down and, after one or two tries (she didn't seem to want to be parted from my lips, which normally would be a nice compliment, but it seemed sort of desperate, like it was linked to those emotions I couldn't read on her face earlier), laid her down on the table. I leaned down and kept kissing her, slipping my hand under her skirt and inside her knickers so I could gently massage the bundle of nerves there (I didn't know much about female anatomy, but every guy who ever aspires to be good in bed knows about _that_).

She gasped in that breathy way only beautiful girls seem able to do and I knew what I wanted to do. I spent a while like that, caressing her, unbuttoning her shirt (I should have gotten an award for doing that without looking and with only one hand; I could have done it with magic, but I didn't want her to think I had memorized a bunch of kinky spells that I used on tons of girls or anything. Plus, touching her was worth it), and skimming my hand over the skin of her abdomen, clavicle, neck, wherever I could reach.

Eventually, I pulled away and looked at her. I could see her shallow, rapid breathing in every swell of her chest. The most entrancing sight I had ever beheld, and I've traveled half the world with my parents on holidays, seen some of the most beautiful scenery the world has to offer.

I kissed my way down her neck, between her cleavage (it was hard not to take a detour there), and down her stomach, slowly unbuttoning her jeans and sliding them off her legs as I blazed a gentle trail of kisses.

The thought of going down on a girl was terrifying—what if I was bad at it? What if it tasted strange? What if it was just a scary, scary place down there once you got up close?—but it was this strange compulsion to please her. I know now, and probably knew it then, too, that she wouldn't realize what I was trying to do, but it made perfect sense that pleasing her, and not myself, in this way would show her how beautiful and magnificent she was. And okay, now I'm repeating myself, but I never said I was a poet. I know few beautiful words, and I can't stop myself from thinking them about Lily, who deserves every one.

So I swallowed my fear and brushed the tip of my nose along the inside of her thigh, making her shiver. I kept skimming my nose, lips, eyelashes, fingers past the sensitive skin of her legs, until I worked up the courage to slowly peel the top of her panties down (they weren't exactly risqué, just some white cotton edged in lace, but Lily made everything sexy). Her hands flew from where they had been lolling off the edge of the desk and clamped on my hands. Her head came up and she looked a little panicked and embarrassed.

"Trust me," I whispered, hoping that for once she could read my true intentions. I may have cheated and brushed my hands up her thigh again. Her eyes fluttered closed the way they do when something feels good, and after a moment she slowly laid her head back down and unclenched her hands from around mine. She didn't seem to know what to do with them, though, so I picked them up and kissed each palm, before wrapping the fingers around the edges of the desk. Hopefully she'd need to grip something soon, but for now they sat loosely there. I scooted her further down and put her legs over my shoulder as I kneeled down.

I'd be lying if I said I haven't, erm, you know…_relieved some tension_ to the memory of Lily arching and breathing hoarsely, hands tangled in my hair as she came, my tongue inside her. Though I daydreamed about her going down on me (duh), I spent more time waiting to do it to her again. Maybe to start off eating her out, then, right when she's on the edge, I could stop and roll her over and take her dogg—

I'm not sure I can ever think that without Padfoot jumping into my brain, which is so _not_ what I want to fantasize about.

I fantasized about a lot of things, but mostly I remember the after. When her hands finally untangled from my hair and her body was resting pliant, recovering, on the table. I felt pretty damn good right about then, but embarrassment crept in. I wanted to kiss her, but was that weird? And how long would it take before she threw her clothes back on and stormed out?

My nervous thoughts were broken by Lily's, "Ow." I stood up, wincing at the stiffness in my knees, from where I had been sitting, rocked back on my heels, since she had finished. I couldn't think how I could have hurt her, but I worried anyway. As I was standing, she summoned her underwear to herself (lazy witch, I thought fondly) and slipped them on. She stayed laid on the table though.

"What is it?"

"Cramp," she said with a huff of air that could almost have been a laugh.

"Where?"

"Leg," she said. "Guess it was tense for a little too long," she said. And she was almost smiling. I laughed. I wanted to take this moment of her _not running away_ and profess my love, but instead I was laughing.

I really hate myself sometimes.

"Don't laugh," she said. "It's your fault!"

"I'm sorry. If it was that bad, I'll—"

"Oh, shut up," she said, and it was definitely a smile. A weird one, but a smile. She was rotating her leg around, trying to work the cramp out, as she closed her shirt, not buttoning it.

"Do you want…?" I trailed off, gesturing to her leg. I was no stranger to cramps, and thought I'd only ever massaged one out of my own leg after Quidditch practice, I figured I could probably help her out. She raised an eyebrow like, what now you're a trainer, too?

I raised one back. She snorted.

Challenge accepted.

I grabbed her left knee to stop her rotating. I touched the muscle at the top of her thigh, where I would assume she was cramping. I looked at her; she nodded. I started working the muscle the way I would if it were my leg, but gentler, because her skin didn't seem like it could hardly take any friction at all. Which got me to thinking about what would reduce friction. Which got me to thinking about some body oil. Which got my mind going places that did not help my painfully obvious erection go anywhere.

She sighed and I felt the muscle relax. I kept rubbing light circles with my thumb, though, desperate to prolong this, to feel like an ordinary couple cuddling after sex.

I saw the blush appear on her cheeks, could practically see when the flight urge kicked in. I leaned against the edge of the table and didn't stop gently rubbing. I wished I could massage away her fear, anger, embarrassment, hatred, whatever it is that kept us apart.

"Are you okay?" I asked, quiet as a mouse in my fear that the slightest disturbance would cause her to bolt like a frightened deer. Which would actually be okay, because, as you know, I'm a stag. I wondered what Lily's patronus was, then refocused.

She sat up and looked away from me. My hand fell away from her leg and to my side. Would it sound too dramatic to say that my heart broke?

But she answered. "I'm fine." It wasn't the most reassuring response in terms of content, but the fact that she had said anything at all allayed the worst of my concerns.

"Do you… do you want to talk about it?" She did that huffing laugh again.

"I know how boys hate emotional drama."

"When I said 'do you want to talk about it', it was code for 'please Merlin tell me about it,'" I said. I was serious, but I'm a funny guy, so it came out all funny-like and she actually sort of laughed.

"No offense, but you're sort of the last person I want to talk to about it." Yeah. Good thing she said 'no offense', otherwise that would have really hurt.

"Maybe that means I'm the person you _should_ be talking to about it." She looked at me, straight in my eyes, and it happens so rarely that it still feels like a tractor beam holding me in place when we lock eyes. I can barely blink.

"Maybe," she said. I opened my mouth in a fit of Gryffindor courage to start the conversation we need to have, but she looked away and cut me off, "Look, I should get going. Birds day in the village." And suddenly I had about as much courage as a Hufflepuff (sorry, Puffsters) and I swallow my words and sadness. I backed up a step, then two.

"Yeah," I said, voice sounding like the morning after a full moon. Rough, dry, and painful. I cleared my throat and hoped she didn't notice. A minute later, she was dressed and we were both hovering by the door.

"Bye," she said. A small surge of the Gryffindor spirit was back and after I opened the door, I pecked her on the cheek and said, "Bye," before fleeing.

I took a passage to the village instead of walking the path because I wanted to be alone.

The guys wanted to know where I'd been, and I told them the truth—that I'd wanted to talk to Evans about The Incident—and a lie—that it had gone horribly.

Remus gave me a small, sad sort of encouraging smile, Sirius patted me on the back in the painful manly way, and Peter just sort of nodded. Then I bought my weight in Honeydukes and Zonko's products and we wreaked general mayhem in the village.

I didn't see Lily, but it was a good day.

I fantasize about doing a lot of things with Lily, but mostly I remember the after when she smiled.

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><p><strong>AN** Decent length, right? Messr. Prongs says Reviews are mandatory for even remotely timely updates! Also, I love you long time if you review.


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